HACKER Q&A
📣 firefax

How can I delete my Instagram?


When I was in graduate school, I ran a closed instagram where I posted artful photos of landscape and architecture. (This was back when HDR was coming into vogue, and achieving a similar "look" with a simple iPhone and zero editing was no small feat)

When Trump took office, since my focus had been on censorship circumvention and I had promised my research participants, some of whom had connected with me on the site, that I would delete any data in the event of a hostile government event, I permanently deleted my Facebook and Instagram.

I recently decided to give the site a second chance -- I registered for Facebook, then used that as an SSO for Instagram, and began posting my photos, geotagged, with descriptions of the set and setting they were taken in. Not in a spammy way, one every day or so.

Suddenly, one day my Facebook was disabled -- I was told my account was "inathentic" without any option for appeal. To add insult to injury, the policy they linked to on "inauthenticity" (which, since I registered using my legal name, I was not violating) didn't even exist -- I got a big fat 404 looking for how my profile could be seen in any way, shape, or form as inauthentic.

Since my art featured no humans, I never had to deal with the issues some photographers of human subjects bump up against. I was never one uncivil on the platform.

I've given up on being able to use things like Facebook Marketplace (one of the reasons I gave them a second shot, since Craigslist is a ghost of it's former self), but... the Instagram persist. I continue to get emails nudging me to return... but I can't, because the Facebook account I used for SSO has been arbitrarily banned.

I am not eligible for EU citizenship (paid a lawyer to check -- Italy has changed their nationality law to only go back two generations) so it's my understanding the GDPR is not in play despite many of these photos being taken and uploaded from within the EU during my travels.

Do I have any recourse here? I do not like the idea Meta can make money off my content while denying me the use of their platform, and wish to permanently part ways given this terrible customer service experience.


  👤 toomuchtodo Accepted Answer ✓
Permanently delete or deactivate your Instagram account: https://help.instagram.com/370452623149242

File DMCA takedown notices with them for your photos, you own the copyright. You can leverage US copyright to its full extent in this use case. Instagram is under no obligation to enable your participation on the platform, but you remain the owner of the content associated with the account.

https://help.instagram.com/contact/552695131608132

https://help.instagram.com/126382350847838

Please report back with outcome findings and learnings.